


It Is My Heart That's Late

by churchkey



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: AU, Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Angst, Big Decisions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Love Confessions, M/M, PTSD, Post-War, Reunion, Summer Garden Porn, Swimming, memories of war, slight internalized homphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24940120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchkey/pseuds/churchkey
Summary: He removed his hat and dragged his fingers through his damp hair a few times, and Lew saw more lines in his face, brown splotches from working in the sun. But the vitality in his eyes, the flutter of his lips, always fighting a smile he feared would reveal too much; these were hints of the man Lew remembered, and he felt that old pull again, felt himself reeling back into his orbit like there had been no years at all.---That time Dick tried to ghost Lew after the war but fate had other plans.
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 30
Kudos: 106
Collections: Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt Meme





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Loose Lips Sink Ships prompt "Dick is outed and has to leave town. Nix finds him working on a farm somewhere in the west." In this case, "west" = "Midwest". It's west of Pennsylvania. Please see end notes for explanation of title and a link to the lovely poem from which it is derived.

Lew’s eyes darted back and forth between the dusty gravel tracks ahead of him and the rumpled section of the map he held against the steering wheel. Bridge work on Highway 85 had sent him on a detour south, miles out of his way, and he’d decided to improvise his own route across a series of back roads. He knew that each one marked the boundaries of one square mile, a neat grid that stretched across the entire state, and he figured that if he just kept moving west, he’d wind up back on the highway eventually. He was really hoping to make it to Des Moines by dark. 

When he’d left New Jersey a little less than two weeks ago, he’d envisioned not so much a business trip as a spiritual quest, his own forty days in the wilderness. His most recent marriage had crashed and burned before it had even left the runway and he was feeling bored and restless, in need of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Not distraction; it wasn’t that simple. The best way he could describe it was that he wanted to be of use. It didn’t matter to whom or for what purpose. He was thirty years old and had a strange feeling that his life was beginning over again, that the remaining years stretched out ahead of him like endless rolling hills. At the same time, he knew that something inside of him had died, that someone he used to be or believe in was gone for good and he hadn’t even stopped to mourn him.

It was this odd combination of optimism and sorrow that urged him on, first west out of New Jersey on Route 1, then Highway 30 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, west across the Ohio plains, finally reaching Indiana on the morning of the third day. From there it was a series of small towns, water towers announcing their names from miles away: Sharpsville, Arcadia, Peoria, Moline, DeKalb. That morning he’d met with the father and son behind Holden Foundation Seed in Williamsburg, just west of Iowa City. They were friendly and plainspoken but ultimately unconvinced that their farmers would trust their yields to some outfit from the East Coast. They seemed to sincerely regret that he’d driven all that way to be rejected, but it didn’t bother Lew at all. He still had six more companies to visit yet, and anyway, the real money was in hybrids.

From Des Moines he’d make his way north through the Minnesota River Valley and then hook east through southern Wisconsin, finally making it to Chicago by the end of the next week, where he’d planned a weekend of abject hedonism for himself as a reward. If he struck out in the hotel bar, he knew which Near North clubs were Mafia-protected and which were likely targets of raids. It would be a fitting coda to three weeks of roadside motels and ragged paperbacks and tipping a splash of Vat into his diner coffee under the counter when the waitress wasn’t looking. 

He was trying to determine whether he should make a left at the junction up ahead when a tractor appeared through the haze and Lew had to veer sharply to the right, narrowly avoiding careening down into the ditch. He felt his back wheels fishtail as he pumped the brake, but the farmer seemed to take no notice of his near-miss, just raised one index finger off the wheel in greeting. Lew cut the engine and took off his sunglasses, pressing his fingertips hard against his eyelids. 

His collar and back were damp with sweat. Though he’d rolled up his sleeves and taken off his tie, he couldn’t seem to get comfortable. It had been fine on the highway with the windows down, but he’d rolled them up once he’d hit the gravel. He’d used the trip as an excuse to buy a new car and he didn’t want the upholstery ruined by the same layer of dust that no doubt coated the exterior now. He desperately wanted a drink; not booze, just something cold, with ice cubes, that he could hold up to his hot cheek and feel the beads of condensation against his skin.

He was cursing himself for not just sticking to the detour when he noticed the heads of several children approaching him through rows of knee-high soybeans. They were chatting with each other, laughing sometimes, and intermittently bending down to hack away at the dirt with some sort of hand tool. 

As they got closer, he could see that they couldn’t be much older than twelve or thirteen and he wasn’t sure if they’d be able to offer much in the way of directions. Then he noticed a taller figure coming up the farthest row, apparently the lone adult supervising this crew of child laborers. 

“Thank god,” Lew mumbled, making a half-hearted attempt to re-fold the map before giving up and tossing it on the passenger seat. He opened his door and stepped out onto the gravel, looking at the man from across the roof of the car. 

“Excuse me!” he shouted, waving his arms like a semaphore. 

The man was pointing downfield, apparently directing the kids to their next rows, when he looked up from under the brim of his shapeless straw hat. He was completely still for a moment, as though trying to determine whether Lew was real or a mirage, and then began walking slowly toward the car. 

“I was hoping you could give me directions back to the highway!” Lew shouted to him. The man said nothing, just kept walking closer, his eyes fixed on Lew’s face. Perhaps he still couldn’t hear him.

“I said I was hoping -”

The man stopped walking. 

“Nix?”

Lew’s stomach dropped and he felt the blood drain from his head, rushing down through his chest, groin, thighs, pooling somewhere around his ankles. It wasn’t him, it couldn’t be. After everything he’d done to forget him and leave all of that in the past. 

“Jesus Christ,” Lew said quietly. But he was stuck there, frozen in his shock, and Dick was standing there before him just ten yards away, a distance that seemed so insignificant after the gulf of nearly five years, but still so agonizingly out of reach. 

It was him, though. It was Dick taking halting steps toward him, hale and hearty as ever, as though the years hadn’t aged him so much as preserved the best and freshest parts of him. He removed his hat and dragged his fingers through his damp hair a few times, and Lew saw more lines in his face, brown splotches from working in the sun. But the vitality in his eyes, the flutter of his lips, always fighting a smile he feared would reveal too much; these were hints of the man Lew remembered, and he felt that old pull again, felt himself reeling back into his orbit like there had been no years at all.

“Dick. My god.” His voice was soft and reverent. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

Dick shook his head faintly and shrugged one shoulder. He was carrying a long pole with a metal hook at the end and he held it up as though it explained everything. 

“Just walkin’ beans.” His eyes swept along the length of the Mercury. “What are you doing here?”

Lew said the first thing that came to mind. “Selling Bibles.” 

Dick smirked at that. “Never thought you’d get religion.” 

Lew’s jaw went tight. He swallowed. “I guess nothing turned out the way we thought.” 

Dick looked down at his feet briefly, but then his gaze found Lew’s again, as though drawn there by a force too strong to resist. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a shrill voice cutting across the field. 

“Dick! HEY DICK!”

Lew looked beyond Dick and saw a kid in overalls and a red t-shirt, whom he would have taken for a boy if not for the long braids bouncing against her chest as she waved her arms back and forth above her head. 

She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled again. “Can I drive the truck back to the house?” 

“No!” Dick yelled back. 

She shrugged and held one hand up to her ear as though she couldn’t hear him, shook her head and shrugged again. 

“In the back, Debra!” 

They watched her sprint to the truck, open the door and climb up into the driver’s seat. 

“Goddammit,” Dick mumbled under his breath. 

Lew laughed. “Who’s that?”

“Boss’s girl. They let her run wild.” He looked back at Lew. “I’ve gotta get these kids paid for the week. Can you give me about half an hour?” 

“Sure.” 

Dick stepped around the car and they were finally standing before each other. He pointed to a stand of trees behind Lew, his arm hovering just above Lew’s shoulder. 

“There’s a road that runs right along that shelterbelt. My cabin’s back there. Take a left at the trees and it’s about a quarter mile south, you can’t miss it.” 

“Alright,” Lew said. “I’ll be there.” 

As though they’d both finally snapped out of a stupor, they shook hands, and suddenly it didn’t matter to Lew how long it had been or how they’d left things or how hard he’d worked to convince himself he didn’t care anymore. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Dick said. 

Lew couldn't believe it either, and yet there he was, standing in a bean field in the middle of the country in the middle of July, trapped somewhere between blame and forgiveness. But at least they were there together. 

***

Lew found a shady spot near the end of the drive to park the car and was leaning against the fender smoking a cigarette when Dick’s truck turned into the long dirt driveway. He gave Lew a curt nod as he passed him and came to a stop next to a shabby little outbuilding, its roof moss-covered and caving in on one side. The driver side door opened with a metallic creak and Lew watched as one long, denimed leg, followed by the rest of him, stepped out of the cab. 

He dropped his cigarette in the grass and crushed it out with the toe of his shoe. Dick walked slowly around the bed of the truck and leaned against the tailgate, crossing his arms and looking at Lew with an expression he couldn’t quite read. He was guarded, observant. It reminded Lew of when they’d first met and it felt like Dick was always appraising him, trying to figure out what sort of friends they were going to be. 

“Nice place you got here,” Lew said as he walked toward him. 

Dick nodded contemplatively and looked around, taking in the overgrown trees, the anemic patches of grass, the little cottage with the same board and batten siding as the crumbling shed, its paint flaked off in so many places it looked sort of mottled all over. 

“It’s not exactly Berchtesgaden.” 

Lew breathed an awkward laugh. “So what are you doing, tenant farming?” 

“No, I’m just the hired man.” He dropped his hands to his hips. “You thirsty?” 

“Sure.” 

Dick cocked his head toward the house. “Come on.” 

And as he turned to walk across the yard, Lew felt Dick’s hand touch him lightly between his shoulder blades, the gesture automatic and familiar. Then the hand was gone and they were mounting the steps of a wide, shady porch that extended the length of the front of the house. Lew sat down on a two-seat glider that was rusted in spots and, like everything else, probably second-hand. Dick disappeared through the screen door. Lew let his weight gently rock the seat forward and back, listening to the crack and scrape of Dick prying ice cubes from a metal tray. 

He was back a few minutes later with two large glasses of iced tea. The glass was already sweating and the tips of their fingers touched briefly as he handed it to Lew. Rather than take the seat next to him on the glider, Dick perched himself on the porch railing, leaning back against a support beam. 

“What are you really doing here?” 

Lew took a long drink of his tea, swallowed. “Trying to keep my hand in.” 

“Yeah?” Dick looked at Lew over the rim of his glass. “And how’s that going?”

“Turns out the market for gunpowder isn’t quite what it used to be.”

Dick laughed quietly. “Imagine that.” 

“We’re making fertilizer again.” Lew shrugged. “Didn’t know what the hell else to do with three million gallons of ammonium nitrate.” 

“Well you came at the right time,” Dick said. “The farmers around here can’t get enough.” 

One corner of Lew’s mouth lifted in an ironic grin. “Just doing our part to feed America.” 

Dick looked down at the floorboards and went quiet. Lew listened for a moment to the breeze blowing through the trees; somewhere, he could hear windchimes. 

“What brought you all the way out here?” Lew asked.

“That’s a long story.” 

Lew shrugged and shook his head in invitation. Dick took a long, deep breath. 

“One day I just started driving. I said I’d stop when I got a sign.” He was looking off into the distance and his voice sounded wistful and remote. “The clutch burned out somewhere around Oskaloosa and I figured that was it. There was a grain elevator across the street from the repair shop. I asked about work and they sent me to the Essick farm.” He looked back at Lew. “So here I am.”

He was being cagey in a way Lew had never seen before. There was a time when they’d told each other everything, or at least shared it with their bodies when the words wouldn’t come. Lew wondered if they could ever get back to that place again or if it was another world that was lost to them forever, like Zell am See and Bastogne. Like Currahee. 

Dick set his glass on the rail and crossed his arms. “How long are you here for?”

“I’ve got a meeting with Pioneer on Monday morning.”

“That’s only about 75 miles west on 62,” Dick said. “It’s a good road, blacktop all the way. You could probably make it in time for supper.”

Lew nodded and said nothing. That twitchy smile was fluttering over Dick’s mouth again.

“Or you could stay here with me, if you’d like.”

Lew smiled back at him. “I would like that.”

Dick checked his watch and Lew was amazed to see he still had his A-11. Lew had no idea where his had ended up; he wasn’t even sure it had made it back across the Atlantic with him. Dick looked back at Lew and his eyes flashed with a knowing and lively gleam.

“You ever had Iowa bacon?” 

“No, not yet.” 

“Well buddy,” he said, standing up and looking down at Lew like his whole life was about to change. “You’re in for a treat.”


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re telling me you grew all of this yourself?” 

They were out back in the garden, a lush rectangle divided into neat rows of stalks and leaves and vines.

Dick lifted one shoulder in a modest little shrug. “The plants did most of the work.”

He asked Lew to dig up some potatoes but then reassigned him when he saw him just standing there bewildered, unable to locate anything even vaguely resembling a potato. He pointed at some tall plants at the edge of the garden enclosed in wire cages. “See if you can find a couple ripe tomatoes.”

Lew reached in between the branches and gently lifted a tomato in his palm, twisting it at the stem. He raised his hand up and down a few times, surprised by its weight. 

“That’s a big one,” he heard Dick say proudly from where he knelt by the potato hills. 

Lew felt an odd sense of pride himself. He hadn’t planted or tended this garden, but to have a role as small as simply harvesting its fruit made him feel like he’d done something wholly self-sufficient, like he had the power within himself to take care of all of his own needs. He understood a little more clearly the lure of self-reliance, and why Dick was drawn to this life. 

Inside of fifteen minutes they had everything they needed for supper, more or less. Waxy little new potatoes, a couple handfuls of downy green beans, Lew’s state fair tomato, plus two more smaller ones, and a soft rosette of butterhead lettuce, all laid out like offerings in a white enamel dishpan. 

They were kneeling side by side, wordlessly pulling weeds. Dick tucked his chin into his shoulder and sniffed deeply. “Dear god, why didn’t you say something?”

“You’re forgetting how small some of those foxholes were.” 

Dick sat back on his heels and took a deep breath. His gaze took in the garden, the back of the house, the line where his little backyard met the thick rows of corn. He turned his head to look at Lew. 

“I’m glad you’re here.” 

Lew brushed the dirt off his hands. It was the most unguarded he’d seen him so far, and he wondered how sure he was about that or if, like him, Dick was feeling a strange need to atone for something he couldn’t fully remember anymore, some accidental crime he’d committed in another life. 

“I’m glad I made it in time for supper.” 

Dick smiled at him, finally, the way he used to. _That’s just what my old friend Nix would say_ , that smile seemed to convey. He stood, brushed the dirt from his knees, and held the dishpan against his stomach. 

“I’m gonna clean up. Why don’t you bring your things inside, make yourself at home.” 

As he watched Dick walk away, the thought sprang up without warning, ambushed him before he could defend himself. 

_I am home._

***

Lew sat at one end of the little formica table in the kitchen. At the other end was a green tin cake saver painted with red and yellow flowers and a note tucked beneath it. He’d noticed it earlier, while Dick was in the shower, but hadn’t wanted to pry. But now he couldn’t help it. He slid the note out from under the plate and read it aloud. 

“Dick, hope you’re hungry. Kind Regards, Valerie.” He looked up at Dick, who was efficiently snapping the stem ends off the green beans and dropping them into a pot on the stove. “Who’s Kind Regards Valerie?”

Dick paused a moment. “Mr. Essick’s other daughter.” He swept the little green nubs off the counter and into his hand. “It’s been suggested that I marry her after she graduates next spring.”

Lew made a face. “Isn’t that a little young?”

Dick shrugged. “That’s how they do things in the Corn Belt.” 

“May I?” 

“Go ahead.” Dick didn’t even watch as Lew pushed down the wire bale and lifted the lid off the plate to reveal a thick layer cake covered in shiny whorls of fluffy meringue so white it was almost glowing. 

Lew whistled. “Real boiled icing. She’s really giving you the hard sell.” 

Dick turned around and looked at the cake in resignation. “I’m gonna need your help with that.”

Lew raised his hand to his forehead in a lazy salute. “I’m your man.”

When the vegetables were done, they sat at the table together eating one BLT after another. As soon as the toast popped up, Dick would snatch the hot slices with careful fingers and pile them high with lettuce, bacon, tomato, cut the sandwich in half and set one half on Lew’s plate, one on his own. Then they’d start it over with two more slices of toast. In between there were boiled potatoes and crisp, steamed green beans and more iced tea. 

Talking was easier with food to distract them. Lew told Dick about his divorce. Dick talked about tractors and crop rotation and maximizing yields. They remembered Harry, one story flowing easily into another, nights he’d gotten even drunker than Lew and they’d both had to carry him to bed. 

Lew gathered that Dick had been in touch with Harry, and Lip too. He even heard from some of the NCOs from time to time, and Lew realized with a flash of humiliation that it wasn’t that Dick had cut himself off from his old friends entirely. Just from him. It was like opening an old wound that had never healed properly. He felt the knife’s sharp edge slice into his heart and then the blood spreading warm through his chest. 

Dick wiped his fingers on his napkin and balled it up in his fist. “Are you still drinking as much?” 

Lew swallowed, braced himself for the judgement in Dick’s eyes. But it wasn’t there; only mild curiosity. 

“Not quite,” he began thoughtfully. “Not as often.” 

Dick’s brow furrowed, questioning. 

“I save the benders for the weekends,” Lew clarified. 

Dick nodded. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “If you need to. I don’t have anything, but - “

“I’m alright.” Lew heard the patronizing tone in his voice, and didn’t care. He didn’t need Dick’s pity. But in truth, he wasn’t alright. He did need a drink, and all his thoughts were beginning to concentrate on the bottle in his suitcase. 

“I wasn’t very nice about that, was I?” Dick’s voice had become hollow and husky. 

Lew just shrugged, noncommittal. 

“I didn’t understand. I’m sorry.” 

Lew looked at him from across the table and shook his head faintly.

“You don’t need - “

But the words died out in the space between them and they were left in the thundering silence of everything they’d never said. It had always been there and it haunted them still. Would they ever manage to break its hold?

“Yes I do.” Dick was looking at Lew’s hand resting on the table. He moved his own hand closer, brushed the backs of their knuckles together. Lew opened his hand, laced his fingers through Dick’s in a loose tangle. 

He gave Dick a weak smile and nodded toward the counter. “Well, are we going to eat that cake or just stare at it all night?” 

***

Out on the porch again, they sat side by side in the glider eating fat wedges of cake, licking every trace of that stark white icing off the edges of their forks. Dick drank cold coffee left in the percolator from the morning. Lew sipped whiskey from a jelly jar. 

The clouds had begun to pile on top of each other during supper and now they formed a thick wall on the western horizon, turning the sky grey, then blue, then black, their bellies continuously lit from within by faint flashes of lightning. The air around them felt charged and it sparked a chemical reaction of competing feelings inside of Lew. Part of him wanted desperately to confront Dick, ask him just who the hell he thought he was to cut him off so easily and heartlessly. He wanted to hurt Dick like Dick had hurt him, and just as badly, he wanted to prostrate himself before him, beg his forgiveness for whatever he’d done to make him turn away. 

Mostly, he wanted to go back to that day five years ago when they’d stood before each other, hands stuffed in the pockets of their trousers, garrison caps cocked somewhere between subtle and jaunty, and promised each other that this wasn’t the end. 

“New Jersey,” Dick mused, and if Nix had been paying attention, he’d have heard the hesitation in his voice. 

But he just stood there shaking Dick’s hand, as the smile they shared became more and more ironic, both thinking of the contrast between this polite goodbye and the raucous send-off they’d given each other the night before. 

“I’ll make up the guestroom.” 

And then… nothing. Lew sent two letters to the APO and one more to his parents’ address in Lancaster. None came back. For the first couple of months, Lew imagined him delayed in transit, tried to force it to make sense. But it didn’t explain the silence, the lack of any attempt to contact him, even just to let him know he’d gotten home safely. He came up with so many explanations and none of them squared with the man he thought he knew better than anyone. In the end, he decided that Dick must have been ashamed of him and what they’d done and wanted to start fresh as a new man, leave all of that behind him. 

Lew could understand that. He wanted to remake himself every day. It was being forgotten, ignored, that angered him. As far as he saw it, Dick had no right to forget. But if that’s what he wanted, Lew would do him one better. He could forget too. He could stop himself every time his thoughts turned to Dick and tell himself lies whenever he yearned for him, _he’s better off without you, he wasn’t your friend, he never loved you._

In this way, he turned his heart off, rewrote history, and only missed him when he was really drunk and his guard was down, or the mornings after when he hurt so bad and all he wanted was to hear Dick’s voice asking him one more time if he was alright.

The rest of the time he didn’t think of him at all. 

And now here he was again, right next to him, gently gliding back and forth as the storm rolled in, lost in his own labyrinth of regret. Lew studied his profile and felt five years of self-protective resentment begin to crumble like sand. 

A loud crack of thunder shook the earth and a bolt of lightning ripped the sky in half. The wind picked up, the trees bending at impossible angles. 

“Shit,” Lew mumbled under his breath. “Should we shut the windows?” 

Dick didn’t respond, just kept staring, trance-like, out at the stalks of corn waving around in some grotesque dance in the field across the road. 

“Dick?” Lew gently shook his shoulder. “What do you think?” 

That seemed to wake him up. He blinked a few times, took in the wind and the clouds and the dust rising up as fat raindrops began to splatter the road. He looked at Lew.

“I think we need the rain.” 

His eyes fell to Lew’s mouth. The glider came to a stop. Lew scarcely knew what he was doing as he leaned forward, cupped Dick’s jaw in his hand and drew him in close. They kissed slowly. Dick sighed, and the sound was halting, shaky. Lew dropped his hand to Dick’s chest and realized that he was trembling too. Dick covered Lew’s hand with his and held it tight.

“Let’s go inside,” he said, pressing his forehead to Lew’s. Lew nodded. 

After a moment, Dick stood, held out his hand. Lew sat there looking up at him, searching his face for the lover he once knew. 

“Nix...” Dick murmured, his face a mask of need and desire and unexamined pain, so beautiful in its frailty. 

There he was. Lew took Dick’s hand and let him lead him to the bedroom.


	3. Chapter 3

He woke the next morning to light flooding the room. The only hint that Dick had slept there too were the wrinkles in the sheets and the indentation in the pillow. Lew placed his hand in the divot where Dick’s head had been and every detail of the night came back to him all at once, like remembering a bizarre and wondrous dream. 

Stumbling into the bedroom together, starting at the sound of the door slamming harder than he’d meant it to, and then Dick pressing him up against it, so close it was hard to breathe, dragging his open mouth in hot, wet tracks up and down Lew’s neck. The frenzied race to undress, the petulant cursing at buttons and zippers. Falling clumsily onto the bed, their bodies finally coming together again in that perfect snap of tongue and groove, the delight of the familiar. They touched each other with a knowledge that went deeper than habit or memory, and Lew shuddered as he felt himself opening to it, his body remembering what his heart had fought so hard to forget. 

And then his heart remembered too. 

And outside the walls of that humble cabin, the storm raged on. The wooden blinds rattled against the windows, flashes of lightning poured in like high noon, as though to remind them that even here, they couldn’t hide, and they just dropped their heads back and laughed in defiance, and moaned louder, and fucked harder.

When it was over, they lay side by side on their backs, the covers bunched up at their feet. Lew was intensely craving a cigarette, a finger of whiskey, but he couldn’t move. Dick seemed frozen too, both of them trying to fit what they’d just done into the stories they’d invented to explain the last five years. 

A cool breeze blew through the window; the rain had calmed to a gentle shower. The world was putting itself to rights again but Dick and Lew were silent, uncomprehending and a little afraid of each other and of themselves. If all of that desire was still there, still so strong after all this time, what else remained, and what damage did it have the power to inflict?

Dick was the first to break the silence. 

“I still pray for you.”

Lew turned his head to look at him through the darkness. “You do?”

Dick hummed, met Lew’s gaze. “Every night.” 

“What do you pray for?”

Dick looked back up at the ceiling. “That you’re safe, healthy.” A moment’s pause. “Happy.” 

Lew looked at the ceiling too, and thought about that. 

“I’m not happy.” 

“Yeah.” Dick sighed. “Me neither.” 

***

Dick was making coffee and listening to the ag report on the radio when Lew shuffled into the kitchen in his shorts and undershirt. 

“Morning,” he said quickly over his shoulder. 

Lew sat down stiffly at the table and propped his cheek in his palm. He tried to read Dick’s mood from the practiced movements of his hands as he filled the reservoir of the percolator with water from the tap and scooped coffee grounds into the basket. It felt casual and mundane, like they’d slipped back into the easy routine they’d established so long ago. Last night had cracked something open deep within them, leaving space for genuine affection to seep back in. Lew felt the warmth of it diffuse through his whole body as he watched Dick, his hair still wet from the shower, set the coffee pot on the stove and light the burner. 

But easy as it was, the routine was masking something too. Lew was beginning to see how tightly they’d both clung to it back then because it let them believe that this was just how it was between them, as though their relationship hadn’t been the result of their own continual, deliberate effort, but instead had just emerged fully formed, like Aphrodite rising from the foam. If they had any hope of salvaging what remained, Lew decided, they’d have to lay it all out and shine a light on it, dare to look closely. Starting with what the hell had happened to Dick in the middle of the night. 

“Hungry?” 

“Not yet.” Lew waited for Dick to join him at the table. When he did, Lew looked calmly into his eyes and spoke as patiently as he could. 

“How often does that happen?” 

A circumspect smile floated across Dick’s face. “Used to be several times a week. You don’t remember?” 

Lew just kept looking at him, waiting. Dick’s smile faded. 

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. “It’s probably been two years, maybe longer.” He looked down at his hand and splayed his fingers wide against the speckled tabletop. “It’s nothing to worry about.” 

“Nothing to - “ Lew furrowed his brow and sat back in his chair. “Dick, do you even remember it?” 

Lew did. He didn’t think he could forget. Being jolted awake as Dick suddenly bolted upright in bed, breathing hard and looking frantically around the room. 

“Is someone here?” he’d demanded urgently, staring at Lew like he’d never seen him before. 

“What?” 

“Someone’s in the house.” 

Dick threw the covers off and sprung out of bed. Lew groped at the piles of clothes on the floor for his pants, hastily pulling them on as he followed Dick out of the room. 

“He’s got a gun… Bayonet,” Dick mumbled, opening doors and checking behind furniture. 

Lew just stood back watching helplessly, until Dick started for the front door. 

“Christ’s sake, you’re naked as a jaybird.” He grabbed a tartan blanket off the sofa and followed him out into the yard. 

“No one’s here, Dick,” Lew called to him. “Come back inside.” 

But Dick was still searching, staring at the trees as though he was certain he’d seen some dark figure skulking between them. Lew approached him cautiously and draped the blanket around his shoulders. 

“It’s okay. It’s just me.” 

Dick glanced down at the tasseled hem of the blanket. Realization seemed to dawn on him then and he wrapped it tightly around his chest. He looked back up at Lew, and he seemed so scared and ashamed that Lew felt embarrassed for him, like he was seeing something Dick would never have wanted him to see, and he looked away. He wished now that he hadn’t.

But it was nothing to worry about. 

The percolator had started to boil, the coffee bubbling up against the glass top. Dick walked over to the stove to turn the burner down and took two ceramic mugs from the cupboard, white with a cheery red gingham pattern. He brought them back to the table and sat down again, taking a long, careful sip of coffee before calmly responding to Lew’s question. 

“I have nightmares sometimes. Not as much as I used to. Sometimes I wake up and it feels like I’m still in them.”

Lew raised his cup to his lips and blew across the surface. “I believe that’s called hallucinating.” 

“It only lasts for a few minutes,” Dick said. “It’s just that sometimes - well, you saw.” 

Lew took another sip of coffee. It wasn’t the nightmares themselves that troubled him; hell, he still had them himself once in a while, especially when he was trying to quit drinking. It was what happened after. Dick, sitting in stony silence on the edge of the bed while Lew wiped the mud and wet grass off his bare feet with a scratchy towel he’d found in the front closet. Lying next to him in the dark, wide awake, wanting desperately to fold Dick into his arms and hold him close, remind him of how strong they’d once been and all they’d survived, because they’d had each other. 

But Dick turned away from him and the inches between them may as well have been an ocean. Lew knew that crossing it would be futile, so he didn’t try. He just lay there watching the rise and fall of Dick’s ribs, thinking about all the nights this had happened when he hadn’t been there, of Dick facing that terror all alone. 

Dick cleared his throat. “I think maybe seeing you again…” He paused, exhaled wearily. Lew could see him trying to figure out how to break something to him gently. “I think a lot of stuff is coming back and not all of it’s good.” 

Lew nodded. “Makes sense.” 

They drank their coffee in silence for a few moments. On the radio, a man’s voice was tonelessly listing prices per bushel on winter wheat. Dick drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Lew looked into his eyes, his mouth twisted in a crooked grin. 

“But some of it’s good, right?” he asked. “Last night was good. I mean, before.”

Dick smiled bashfully and peered into his coffee. “Last night was very good.” 

“We still know what we’re doing, right?” 

They gazed at each other across the table and Lew could tell they were thinking the same thing, that it didn’t matter how long it had been. Even if it were ten years, even if it were twenty, they’d still know each other’s touch like their own heartbeats. 

Dick tipped his head to the side and smiled at Lew like dawn breaking over the prairie. 

“I don’t think we could forget if we tried.” 

The fact that they both had tried only made the truth of it that much more blinding.


	4. Chapter 4

Later, as they were bouncing down another gravel road in Dick’s truck, it occurred to Lew that, despite what he’d told Dick the night before, he was happy, right now, in a way he hadn’t remembered being in a long time, in a way he’d thought maybe he’d never feel again. He looked at Dick across the cab, and he was so gorgeous like that, one hand on the wheel, his elbow hanging over the door, the wind blowing his hair up in little spikes and fluttering his shirtsleeves. Perhaps his prayers had worked. 

They’d spent the morning driving around the farm, Dick pointing out which cornfields had been beans the year before, which they reserved for pasture and which for hay. He slowed down when they reached the alfalfa field and told Lew to breathe deep, nothing smelled as sweet as alfalfa in the summertime, and he was right. 

Then it was a tour of the rest of the county, the best spots for wild asparagus, the creek where Dick sometimes went fishing. They drove closer to town and Dick showed him the steep hill that the high school track team used for training and the cemetery where he’d once interrupted a couple of teenagers having sex in the bed of a borrowed truck. The VFW Post he sometimes stopped by on a Friday, the Methodist church he attended with the Essicks on Sundays. They had lunch at a little cafe on Main, the best egg salad Lew had ever had in his life. A few farmers there recognized Dick and stopped by their table to say hello, but they didn’t ask about Lew and Dick didn’t introduce him. 

“People here generally mind their own business,” Dick explained to him later. “To your face, anyway.”

There wasn’t a liquor store but Lew found a bar up the street from the cafe that was open and sold beer off-sale, so he bought a six-pack of Hamm’s and asked very politely if they had an opener he could borrow for the afternoon. He promised to bring it back the next time he was in town, which would likely be never. But they gave him one anyway and he slipped it into his shirt pocket as he walked back into the brilliant sunshine, back to Dick leaning against the door of the truck, fiddling a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. 

“From the land of sky blue waters,” he said, and then pointed at the beer when Lew furrowed his brow in confusion. 

As soon as they were out of town, Lew punched two holes in the top of one of the cans and took a long drink. 

“What do you think of the local?” Dick asked. 

Lew grimaced and drank again. “Ask me after three more.” 

They drove down another unmarked gravel road and Lew wondered how anyone made their way anywhere in this country without getting lost. He supposed they did it by landmarks, but every field and barn and tree looked the same to him. They reached the crest of a hill and at the bottom of it Lew could see a pool of silver shimmering in the sunlight, bordered on all sides by great heaps of red dirt. 

“What’s that?”

Dick smiled furtively. “That’s where we’re going swimming.”

As they got closer Lew could see that the red heaps were gravel, and that the lake was actually a gravel pit that had filled in with groundwater. 

“You’re taking me swimming in a pit mine.”

“It’s just like the quarries back home.” 

“I don’t swim in those either.” 

Dick chuckled and slowed to turn into the drive that led to the beach. “I’d forgotten what a sheltered life you led until you met me.”

They had the place to themselves so they changed right on the beach. Dick had loaned Lew his only pair of swim trunks. 

“What are you going to wear?” Lew had asked as they were getting ready to leave that morning. 

Dick had just smiled and told him not to worry about it. 

“You asshole,” Lew muttered, chuckling quietly, when he realized that the navy trunks Dick was pulling up over the soft thatch of red between his thighs were his old PT shorts. 

Dick just smirked and began walking toward the water.

It was much colder than Lew had expected, and impossibly clear. The shallows extended about twenty feet from the shore and then dropped off steeply. They swam half-hearted laps out a ways and then back, treaded water and talked about the morning swims in Austria that quickly became a daily ritual, just the two of them at first, and then the rest of the officers once they began to get curious about where Nix snuck off to at sunrise. 

The nudity had been Ron’s idea, or at least he’d set the precedent, stripping down with such nonchalance it was like it had never occurred to him to do otherwise. The rest of the guys just knew to avoid the beach during those hours, unless they wanted to see the bare white asses of the men they’d respected and feared through the whole of the Allied advance. 

“Remember Harry’s cock?”

“Oh god,” Dick said on a breathy laugh. “I wish I didn’t.”

Harry was standing at the end of the pier, trying to psych himself up to jump in, when they saw it. Maybe it was the angle - Dick and Lew were already in the water - or perhaps they’d just never really looked closely enough in the showers to realize how massive it was. Dick slowly turned his head to stare at Lew, his eyes bulging in horror. 

“Jesus H. Christ,” Lew said, shielding his eyes with his hand. 

“What?” Harry asked, clueless. 

“Shit, Welsh,” Ron said, openly staring at him. “Where do you drop the rounds?”

“Oh fuck you, Speirs. And fuck _you_ and fuck _you_ ,” he said, pointing to Dick and Lew in turn. “You know what?” He swept his arm in a broad circle that seemed to include the entire lake, the trees, the mountains, even poor Lip, who was still undressing on the beach and hadn’t seen a thing. “Fuck all of you.”

“With _that_?” Lew said. “No thank you.” 

A little while later, Dick announced that he needed to warm up, and Lew watched his slow-motion trudge through the shallows, saw the water running in little rivers down his back, zigzagging through the hair on his legs, and he remembered how the sight of Dick in those PT shorts used to utterly ravage what meager scraps of composure he was still hanging onto. He stretched out on his back in the sun and Lew was overcome by a wild desire to press his open mouth to the place between Dick’s legs where those shorts clung to everything, to suck his balls through the wet fabric, the water filling his mouth with the secret, dark taste of him. 

He lay back on his elbows and felt the water lapping at his chest, felt his semi-hard cock swaying back and forth in his borrowed trunks. Dick lay motionless on the beach, looking like a study for a CCC poster. For a moment, Lew considered asking if he felt like having sex, but he looked so peaceful and serene lying there that he decided to just leave him be. 

“So what do you think?” Dick asked a moment later, his eyes still closed against the glare of the sun. 

“Of what?”

“Iowa.” 

Lew took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. Wispy clouds were moving ever so slowly across the blue, imperceptibly changing shape in a slow and graceful dance. 

“Nice,” Lew said. “I can see why you stayed.” He felt like they were on the verge of a serious discussion, and he didn’t know whether he was ready to have it.

Dick just laughed, one forceful huff from his chest. 

“Do you think you will?” Lew began tentatively. “Stay?” 

Dick raised himself to his elbows and shaded his eyes with his hand. “Are you asking if I’m going to marry her?” 

“Yeah.” Lew shrugged a shoulder and began sweeping his hand over the surface of the water. “I guess I am.”

He couldn’t tell if it was frustration or just the sun that made Dick narrow his eyes, just looking back at him in glacial silence for a moment. 

“No.” He dropped back down on the towel. 

“Why?” Lew pressed. “You like it here, right? And three hundred acres… don’t know where you’ll find a sweeter deal than that.”

When Dick spoke again, his voice was so low that Lew had to strain to hear him. 

“You know why.” 

Lew sighed. Translating his good intentions into selfless acts had always been trouble for him, especially when it came to Dick. He didn’t know whether he was genuinely trying to comfort him or just absolve himself. But he soldiered on anyway. 

“It wasn’t just us, you know.” 

“What?”

“Over there.” Lew sat up in the water and bent his knees, hooking his hands around his shins. “Plenty of guys did exactly what we did.”

Dick’s chest rose up off the towel, and he leaned back onto the heels of his hands for support.

“Yeah?” His voice had become impatient, tinged with barely contained anger. “What’s your point?” 

“Guys with wives at home, or girls they married when they got back.”

Dick just shook his head faintly, looking off into the distance. 

“Well I don’t know about those other guys,” he finally said. “I couldn’t do it. I’d rather be alone.” 

“I’m just saying - will you look at me, please?” Lew waited until Dick turned his head, and the anger was still there, but underneath it was a sort of surprised hurt, like he’d just been punched by a stranger for doing nothing more than minding his own business. 

“If this is what you want - the farm, the house, the -” Lew groped for some other appeal but couldn’t think of anything. “It’s okay. It happens all the time.”

“Is that why you keep doing it?” 

“Fuck.” Lew laughed bitterly and shook his head. “I don’t know, Dick. I don’t know what to tell you about that.” 

And it wasn’t a lie; he truly didn’t understand the muddy vortex of desire and delusion that had prompted him to marry again. From this distance, he could see that she’d just been someone to drink with, to enable his worst impulses, and maybe proof, however flimsy, that he wasn’t alone. He really was so terrified of being alone. It was an unsatisfying explanation, but it explained so damn much. 

Dick seemed to be waiting for something, some kind of apology or confession he felt was owed to him. But Lew didn’t know what exactly to apologize for, and he had no idea how to make him understand. So he said nothing, and each of them retreated into his own stubborn resolve that he was right and the other was wrong and that some things never changed. Lew was still adding to this mental list of Dick’s faults when he saw a blurred figure approaching the beach through a cloud of dust. 

“Kid.” 

“Huh?” 

“Kid on a bike.” 

Dick looked over his shoulder, watching her ride toward them. Then he wearily reached for his shirt and sat up to push his arms through the sleeves. 

“You know you’re not supposed to come here alone,” he said as she dropped her bike in the sand and jogged over to him. 

“I just wanted to cool off,” she said defensively. “Dad made me muck out the barn _all morning_.”

“Good,” Dick said. “It needed it.” 

She dropped to the sand and sat cross-legged on Lew’s towel. “Who’s that guy?” she asked, pointing at him. 

“That’s Lewis.”

“Hi Lewis.” She waved. “I’m Debra.”

Lew sunk deeper into the water and waved back. “Hi Debra.”

“Are these your cigarettes?” she asked, pointing at the little pile of clothes next to the towel. 

“Yeah.” 

“Can I have one?” 

Lew laughed. “Sure kid, knock yourself out.” 

Dick sat up and snatched the pack as she was reaching for it. “No you can’t.” He glowered at Lew. 

“She’s gotta learn sometime,” Lew said.

“Well it’s not going to be today.” 

She and Dick stared at each other in some kind of silent showdown Lew suspected they’d had many times before, and then she rolled her eyes and breathed a loud, exasperated sigh. She walked a few steps away and peeled off her shirt and shorts, revealing a yellow one-piece bathing suit with diagonal white racer stripes. Then she ran for the water as fast as she could, kicking up her knees higher as it got deeper and finally sinking to her belly when she couldn’t run anymore. 

“How do you know Dick?” she asked Lew, walking on her hands through the shallows and dragging her body behind her like an alligator. 

“We were in the Army together.”

“The war?” Her face lit up in delight. Lew nodded. 

“Dick won’t tell me anything about the war. He says it’s not appropriate for kids.” 

“Well,” Lew dropped his head to the side. “I suppose I agree with him.” 

“Were you guys pilots?” she asked. “Did you get into dogfights?” 

Lew laughed. “Uh, no. No dogfights.” He became serious then, seized by thoughts and memories whose direction he seemed to have no control over. 

“I’m going to be a pilot,” she said, matter-of-factly. 

“Yeah? Good for you.” 

“Junior Carlson’s dad flies the crop duster and he said he’d take me up in it sometime.”

“Teddy Carlson’s a drunk, you are not going up in that plane,” Dick said as he approached them. He lowered himself into the water a few feet from Lew. 

“You’re not the boss of me.” She splashed at Dick as she swam away. 

Dick turned his head and he and Lew exchanged a look that was not unlike all the looks they’d shared in Georgia or England or Holland or Belgium, when they just couldn’t believe the shit they had to put up with. They laughed softly and Dick inched his body a little closer. 

“Why isn’t she supposed to come here alone?” 

Dick leaned back on his palms and kept his eyes on the little swimmer. “A kid drowned here a few months ago.” 

“Jesus,” Lew whispered. Unconsciously, he shifted his gaze in the same direction Dick was looking. “Why haven’t they closed it down?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said, his voice quiet and thoughtful. “They take their personal liberties very seriously out here.”

“Yeah, but - “ Lew shook his head, uncomprehending. “It’s a dead kid.” 

Dick sighed and looked up at the sky, the gravel heaps, the distant line of the horizon. “I suppose living on a farm, you just get used to it.”

“What?” 

“Death.” He looked back at Lew. “Men fall into grain bins and suffocate or their tractors roll over on them. Women die in childbirth because the nearest hospital’s forty miles away. I had to dig a grave for a horse last week. Do you know how they put down a horse?” 

Lew looked down at the water, wishing he’d just stop. He remembered the fetid bodies of all those horses and thinking he’d gotten used to death too. He didn’t want to hear any more. 

“Dick!” 

They both looked back out at the water, alert, their bodies jolting forward, ready to swim out to her and drag her flailing, choking body back to the shore, but she just laughed and splashed around and tried to cajole them into racing her to the other side. 

“That’s too far out,” Dick yelled. “Come on, we’re taking you home.” 

“Five minutes!”

“Now.” 

Lew was silent on the ride back to the farm. Between them on the bench seat, Debra chattered on about her 4-H calf, Cotton Candy, and how if she didn’t take a blue ribbon at the county fair this year it would be Dick’s fault because he hadn’t helped her at all yet and the fair was only a month away and how was she supposed to get her to follow a lead when she was barely even harness trained?

“Tell Lew what happens to Candy after the fair.” 

“Dad’s gonna sell her for slaughter,” she said frankly. “But I get to keep the money.” She smiled at Lew. “I’m saving up for a dirt bike.”

In his periphery, he could see Dick glancing at him from across the cab, but he didn’t look up, didn’t meet his gaze. He didn’t think he could look anyone in the eyes right now, not without seeing a ghost looking back. 

Back at the house, Dick got out of the truck to lift Debra’s bike out of the bed and she followed him out, sliding across the damp seat behind the steering wheel. 

“Hey kid,” Lew called to her out his window. “Come here.” 

She turned and walked back as Lew found his wallet in the glove compartment. He pulled out a five dollar bill and held it folded between his fingers.

“For the dirtbike fund.” 

She reached for it but he pulled his hand away and looked at her with the most serious expression he could muster.

“Promise you’ll never go swimming there alone.” 

“I won’t.” 

“Say it.”

“I promise.” 

After a moment, his face softened into a smile and he offered her the bill. She gleefully snatched it from his fingers and ran across the yard to the front door, but turned around suddenly before going inside. 

“Thank you!” she shouted, waving at him. Lew waved back. Then she was gone, the screen door slamming behind her. 

Dick guided the truck in a circle around a tall light post near the barn and then back down the drive. 

“You’re quiet,” he said to Lew as he turned onto the road. 

Lew just looked out the windshield. 

“Stuff coming back?” Dick asked gently. 

“Yeah.” His voice felt rough as the gravel crunching under the tires. “Not all of it’s good.” 

Dick waited a moment and then reached across the seat to take Lew’s hand. He laced his fingers between Lew’s, his grip so tight it almost hurt. Lew clenched his hand around Dick’s just as tightly, and didn’t let go until they were back at the cabin.


	5. Chapter 5

They sat on the front porch again, watching the sunset. Unlike the night before, this one had only grown milder as the violent heat of afternoon submitted to the twilight, a vast panorama of brilliant pink and purple, fading to a deep orange where the sun sunk closer to the dark line of the cornfield. It was beautiful, and it made Lew a little sad to see time passing so tangibly, right before his eyes like that. 

Next to him, Dick had one arm draped around the back of the glider and was idly rocking them back and forth with his feet against the floorboards. Whatever anger and resentment they’d dredged up during the bright light of day had faded too, and as Lew sat there beside him, he could feel it leaving his body, all that malice and heartache, the fear that made him tiptoe around his pain like he was scared to wake it up after he’d spent so much time lulling it to sleep.

Now, with all of that stripped away, all he wanted was to stop hiding from each other. 

“Dick.” 

Lew watched his profile as he slowly turned his head to face him. 

“Tell me why you’re really here.”

Dick’s eyes floated down Lew’s body to where their knees touched at the edge of the seat. 

“I told you, it’s a long story.”

“I know. I still want to hear it.”

From inside, the muted strains of some old melody playing on the radio floated through the screen, the rich swell of strings, the bright wail of a trumpet, and it gave Lew that disorienting feeling he used to get around Dick sometimes, when he’d had to think hard to remember what day it was, what year it was. He shifted onto his hip and propped his elbow on the seatback, holding his head up with his fist against his cheekbone. Dick inhaled, long, and breathed out again.

“After I got home, I was working at a farmers implement over in Blair county,” he began. His voice was straightforward but distant, like he was reading about something that had happened to someone else. “There was another guy who’d just gotten home too, and we became quite good friends.”

“Army?”

“Infantry. 28th, I think. His name was Andy. You remember Chuck Grant?”

“Of course.”

“Andy reminded me of him.” A weak smile came into his face. “Blonde hair, just sort of… golden, like he belonged on a beach somewhere, not replacing cultivator shanks in Altoona.”

Lew smiled back at him in encouragement, even though he knew that the longer Dick talked about this man, the harder it would be to listen. But at the same time, he knew that it was deeply important - both the telling and the hearing. 

“Andy and I, we…” Dick laughed awkwardly and cleared his throat. “There were a couple buildings on the property, the main one where we kept all the heavy equipment and then a smaller one behind it where we did the repairs. So after we closed up for the day, that’s where we would meet and… “ he trailed off, looked down. 

“It’s okay,” Lew murmured. 

“Have sex.” Dick looked back into his face again, and his voice became stronger. “It’s where we’d have sex.”

Lew was struck by a memory then, Dick standing on the wet ground of Upottery, hands on his hips and turning in a slow circle taking in the tents, the quonset huts, the walls of sandbags, and Lew could just tell by the set of his jaw that he was evaluating their romantic possibilities. Of the two of them, Dick had always been better at finding places for them to be together.

“What we didn’t know was that once school started, it was also where the boss’s son liked to bring his friends to get drunk after football games.”

“Shit,” Lew breathed. 

“Yeah.” Dick’s mouth twisted in a cynical little smirk. “You can imagine how this story ends.” 

“You got fired?”

Dick nodded. “I came in the next morning to try to explain. Andy had already been there and gone.”

Lew’s brow furrowed in huffy incredulity. “They didn’t run you out of town for that, did they?” 

“Well not run me out, but I wasn’t gonna get another ag job, that was for sure. I thought I’d just try another county, but once I started driving, I just - “

“Wanted to keep going.”

“Yeah. I wanted as much space between me and that building as I could get.” Dick dragged his fingers through his hair, down the back of his neck. 

“And Andy?” 

Dick shrugged. “No idea. I never saw him again.”

There was regret in his voice but there was resolve too, and it was stronger than his pain, and Lew began to see his solitude not as retreat but as an act of defiance against the life of quiet desperation that Lew himself wasn’t strong enough or brave enough to reject. 

“Did you love him?”

Dick nodded. He turned onto his hip and mirrored Lew’s position so that their bodies faced each other. “Yeah. I did.” 

“Do you still?”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head faintly. “No.”

Lew felt his hands go cold all of a sudden. He was nervous and he didn’t know why. “How do you just… turn it off like that?”

“I don’t know.” Dick looked out at the yard, the field. “I guess it’s like a garden. If you don’t water a plant, it doesn’t grow.”

That was it. That was the answer to the question that had hung over his head like a cloud for the last five years. All this time Lew had been telling himself he didn’t care, and all the while he’d been discreetly tending that acre inside of him that belonged only to Dick, pruning and watering and pulling the weeds until it had grown into a verdant and beautiful garden that had fed and sustained him through the worst of his sorrow and his pain. He’d blamed Dick for breaking his heart, never realizing that he deserved the credit for mending it too.

“What about me?”

“You?” 

“Yeah.” Lew’s heart pounded in his chest. “Do you still love me?” 

A smile stretched slowly across Dick’s face, like he’d been waiting for this for a long time. 

“Yes.” He reached for Lew’s hand. “Do you still love me?” 

Lew nodded. “I never stopped. I tried, but…” he laughed softly. “I wasn’t very good at it.” He sighed, becoming serious again. “Why didn’t we ever say it?”

“We said it,” Dick insisted quietly. 

“Not really. Not enough.” Lew shook his head, a little disgusted with himself. “I should have told you every day.”

Dick lifted Lew’s hand to his mouth and Lew felt the sound of his voice vibrate against his skin. “We said it in other ways.” 

And even now, when he knew there was no need to protect himself anymore, Lew felt something within him holding back. Why was something he knew so deeply so hard to give voice to? Maybe because he knew that once he let it out, there would be no stopping it, no putting it back, and that if Dick rejected him again, there would be nothing he could do to dissemble or salvage his pride. That would be it for them. 

But all of that was just bullshit, really. Just excuses for not being who he was. And he was so tired of working so hard to protect an image that Dick had seen through from the start. He took a deep breath. 

“Alright Dick Winters, you listen to me and you listen good.” 

Dick laughed, his eyes flaring in amusement. “Uh oh. This sounds serious.”

They gazed into each other’s faces and Lew let the quiet stretch out just a little while longer. 

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” Dick said it with such certainty it sounded like he was speaking a universal, indisputable truth, and Lew realized in a moment of beatific clarity that it was.

Dick raised one finger, pointing toward the door, and a dreamy look came into his face. “Listen.” 

Lew recognized the melody but couldn’t remember the name. Ever since the war, it had been that song Dick hummed to himself sometimes to bring a little life to shaving or packing his footlocker making his bed, and every time Lew heard it on the radio, he had to change the station. Dick smiled at him so wide that deep creases formed at the corners of his eyes. 

“Come dance with me.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this is where it gets Explicit

They left the light on this time. 

They’d taken their time with the prelude, as though the clocks had slowed and each minute stretched out for days, Lew resting his forehead against Dick’s scratchy cheek as Dick swayed them in a circle across the braided rug. 

“We never did this.”

“Yes we did. You were just too drunk to remember it.” 

“No, I think I’d remember.”

He felt Dick’s arm around his waist hold him tighter.

“You didn’t want to let me lead then either.” 

The dance slowed. They leaned heavier into one another as one song blended into the next, and with his eyes closed, it was impossible to tell where his body ended and Dick’s began. Soon all of his attention became focused intently on the space between them, where he could feel Dick’s hardness pressed aggressively to his hip, and he pushed back against him, wanting Dick to feel him too. 

There was rough, breathless kissing and there were palms sliding up and down the smooth, cool fabric of his shirt, and the surprised gasp when Dick nudged his hips to the right and their erections bumped up against each other. There was the deep rumble of soft laughter in his chest as he stumbled against the sofa and nearly tripped, Dick reaching out to catch him with steady hands. There were whispers and Dick’s fingers in his hair and more kissing and there was the lamp on the bedside table, left on this time, revealing everything. 

Lew kept feeling himself fall in love with Dick again, over and over. As they undressed each other and he saw the serious concentration in his face as he unbuttoned Lew’s shirt. As he knelt between Lew’s thighs and guided the head of his cock to his parted lips, and just held it there a moment, slowly tracing the tip of his tongue back and forth along the slit. And especially, as he rolled onto his back and spread his legs wide across the sheets and informed Lew that it was his turn. 

“Your turn for what?” 

But he just repeated it, calmly enunciating each word.

“It’s my turn.” 

And then Lew got it. His eyebrows arched up his forehead and he leaned back, impressed. 

“You do that now?” 

Dick just nodded coyly and dropped his wrist casually in the direction of the jar on the nightstand. 

It was surreal and strange, coming back together like this after five years of other lovers. Lew kept having to remind himself that they’d never done this before, that there was so much they’d never gotten the chance to try, because it was so natural and easy. 

To watch his fingers disappear inside of Dick, and Dick’s hips rising up to meet the thrust of his hand. To have those thighs pressed against his ribs and to watch Dick writhe beneath him, their hips finding some graceless, primordial rhythm that pulled Lew ever deeper inside. To hear the grunts and curses that spilled like rain from his lips and then dropping his head to kiss that vulgar mouth. To feel Dick’s hands everywhere, gripping his thigh, the back of his head, sliding down his spine to clutch his ass and pull him closer. 

How had they not been doing this their whole lives? 

And that was just outside. Inside, Dick was warm and slick and so tight, sucking him back in deeper each time he pulled out. Twice he had to stop suddenly and grip the base of his cock to avoid coming too soon. It should be Dick first; that was the best part of getting fucked. Lew should know. 

He dipped his fingers in the jar and reached between their stomachs to slick up Dick’s cock, and then Dick began rocking his hips in more dramatic arcs, fucking Lew’s hand as Lew fucked his ass, and the sounds they made grew louder and more urgent. Lew stroked him faster and sat back on his knees. He wanted to see this, wanted to watch as the come spurted out of him in sharp, violent surges, see it splatter across his gorgeous chest and maybe even his face, and when it did, that was the end for Lew too. He thrust his hips hard into him three more times, going still on the last and crying out as his cock pulsed and released everything into the hot, dark heaven of Dick’s perfect ass. 

He collapsed in a heap on top of Dick. They lay there, breathing and sweating on each other, until Dick gently patted his arm and asked politely to be let up so he could go clean himself off. Lew rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. A mild breeze blew through the window and skated across his naked body. A morbid thought stole into his consciousness and wouldn’t leave, and his face stretched slowly in a cryptic smile as he heard it reverberate in his head. 

What a hell of a way to die. 

***

They were sprawled naked across the top sheet, everything else in a pile at the foot of the bed. Hair still wet and skin still cool and buzzing from a cold shower, they lay facing each other, arms wrapped loosely around each other’s shoulders. They didn’t say much because there wasn’t much to say. Instead they kissed softly and smiled secretively and every once in a while, laughed at nothing. 

Lew was just beginning to feel the tide of sleep pulling him out to sea when he heard Dick murmur something. 

“Hm?”

“I said you haven’t asked. I thought you would have asked by now.”

For a moment, he thought of feigning sleep or ignorance. He knew what Dick meant, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. He opened his eyes. 

“Do you want to tell me?” 

Dick shrugged. “If you want to know.” 

Lew propped himself up on his elbow. “Alright. I’m listening.” 

“After you left, nothing was…” Dick rolled onto his back and looked up the ceiling. “I just didn’t feel half as strong without you.”

Lew furrowed his brow but didn’t respond. Dick kept talking. 

“I tried to write so many times but I didn’t know how to say it and I was afraid you wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“Hear what?”

Dick exhaled a deep, frustrated sigh. “I was alone a lot and it gave me more time to think. And what I thought about was that I didn’t want the guest room.”

“Dick, for Christ’s sake, I wouldn’t have made you sleep - “

“I know,” Dick cut him off. “I know. What I mean is, I didn’t want to just be your Army buddy, Nix. I wanted to really be with you. And then after you left, all that confidence I always felt because you were there to build me up, all of that just disappeared and I had so many doubts.” He turned his head to look at Lew, searching his face for some hint of understanding or sympathy. 

“I didn’t think it was possible for us to live like that, without hiding, and I convinced myself that it was that or nothing. And since it couldn’t be that -”

“It was nothing.” 

Dick smiled weakly at him. “I tried to write you Lew, I swear I did. But every week that went by, it got harder and harder to justify it. I thought you must be so mad at me that hearing from me would only make it worse.”

Lew blinked a few times and looked away, shifting his eyes among each discrete object in the room. The window. The dresser. The mirror. The chair. He was getting angry, which surprised him. He thought he’d spent it all up, but there it was, still flickering like an ember deep in his chest. 

“I went there once. Looking for you.” 

“Where?”

“Lancaster.” He looked down at Dick again. “Did you know it’s only a few hours from Edison?”

Dick shook his head. “Did you go to my parents’ house?” 

“No. I just drove around for a while. I kept hoping maybe I’d see you on the street, coming out of a store or getting into your car or something.”

But a part of him knew that Dick wasn’t there, just knew it undeniably. He’d wound up trawling one street after another, trying to picture Dick’s childhood. Had that been his school? Had he played baseball on this field? Mainly he just wanted to feel close to him, and he almost did for a while, but by the time he’d gotten home again he missed him more than ever.

“You didn’t even ask me, you know.” 

“What?”

“If that’s what I wanted too.” 

Dick rolled onto his side to face him again. “What did you want?”

“Hell Dick, I just wanted whatever I could get. If that meant separate bedrooms and double dates, I would have taken it. As long as you were there with me.”

His right hand had begun to tremble and his head was swimming. 

“I guess that’s the difference between us,” Dick said. 

He couldn’t do this anymore. Every time he thought they’d finally lain waste to all the bullshit that had always kept the life they could have just out of reach, sometimes by miles and sometimes mere inches, some new torment arose to pull them apart again. 

He got out of bed and walked to the kitchen. He opened the cupboard and the sight depressed him even more. Dick had just two of everything - two plates, two bowls, two coffee mugs, two saucers. One would be spartan but two made no sense. Certainly he washed up after every meal, and so the twin must just sit there, unused, until the rare guest came to visit. This sight, more than anything, was the push Lew needed to make a decision, once and for all. He poured himself a whiskey, knocked it back, and went back to the bedroom. 

“What if I asked you again?” 

Dick sat up in bed. “I’d say we’d both better be very clear about what we mean.”

Lew sat down cross-legged, facing him. 

“I want you to come home with me and live with me. Share a bed and our lives and - everything.” He looked into Dick’s eyes and reached for his hand. “Not as my Army buddy, not as my best friend.”

“As what, then?”

“You tell me.”

Dick paused a moment. “Your spouse.” 

Lew looked down at their hands. “I hate ‘spouse’,” he said thoughtfully. He turned Dick’s hand over in his and opened it, running his fingertips over the lines in his palm. “How about ‘husband’?”

Dick nodded. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, that sounds good to me.”

Lew looked up and Dick was smiling at him. Slowly, their heads came together in a chaste kiss. They lay back down again.

“Would we have to stay in New Jersey?” Dick asked. 

“Honey, we don’t have to stay in the country." 

Dick laughed softly. “Been a long time since you called me that.” He stroked his fingers along Lew’s hairline, tucking locks behind his ears, back into place. He sighed, pensive. “I don’t know if I can leave before harvest.”

“When’s that?”

“First of October.” 

Lew stared at him a moment. “Are you serious?”

“It’s a big job, he can’t do it by himself, with no sons.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s only July. He can find someone else.”

Dick was quiet. Lew took a deep breath. “Alright,” he said finally. “If you can’t miss harvest, it’s alright. I’ll wait.”

“You will?” 

“Sure.” Lew shrugged like it was nothing. “After five years, what’s two more months?”

 _An eternity_ , he thought. Now, with everything laid bare, with nothing left to lose, two months was a fucking lifetime. He had no idea how he’d endure.


	7. Epilogue

Lew drove away the next day with a sheet of paper in Dick’s elegant handwriting, clear directions back to the highway and from there, straight west to Des Moines. As he was turning left onto the blacktop that went through town, a breeze blew in through the open window and the paper fluttered to the floor. 

Reaching down, Lew saw that it had fallen face-down, and that Dick had written something else on the back. 

_Who can even think of autumn on a day like this?  
I love you.  
\- D_

***

Dick was stripping the bed when he noticed an envelope propped against the lamp. On Nixon Nitration letterhead, there was an address written in Lew’s jagged scrawl.

_The Drake Hotel_  
_140 E. Walton Place_  
_Chicago_

And underneath that:

_We said we’d go someday. It’s someday, Honey._  
_I love you._  
_Nix_

***

The following Friday morning, Roland Essick walked out to the barn to see Dick’s truck parked in front of it, as usual, but Dick was nowhere to be found. He walked back outside and was heading for the corncrib when he noticed an envelope tucked under the windshield wiper of the truck, addressed to him. 

Inside were two pieces of paper. One was a hand-drawn bill of sale, recording the sale of a 1941 Ford Pickup to Debra Essick for $1, signed by Richard Winters, July 21st, 1950. The other was a letter, which explained that Debra could pay him after the fair, and that she still had plenty of time to train her calf, she just needed to make sure to spend time with her every day, talk to her and groom her and earn her trust, and then she’d follow Debra anywhere. He had every confidence she would earn a blue ribbon again this year. 

He thanked Mrs. Essick for always feeding him so well and for letting him use her washing machine on Sundays, and he thanked Valerie for the delicious cakes and pies and jars of homemade jam. She deserved every happiness in her life and he knew that there was a man out there somewhere who would devote himself to seeing to it that she got it, but it just wasn’t him. He thanked Mr. Essick for the opportunity to learn so much from such a competent and intuitive steward of the land. He wished he could stay longer, but it was time for him to go home. 

The forwarding address he provided confused Roland because he’d always thought Dick’s people were from Pennsylvania. 

***

Dick stood in the cramped lobby of the Oskaloosa Greyhound station studying a timetable. All of the other travelers had luggage that was in good condition, some even matching, even if they weren’t new. He was momentarily embarrassed by his old Army duffel bag, but then one of the windows opened up and he moved in quickly to speak to the clerk. 

“1:35 to Chicago, please.”

“You know that doesn’t arrive until after midnight,” she said in a bored tone that suggested she knew what was best for him but didn’t expect him to listen to her, no one ever did. 

“That’s alright,” he said, wondering if Nix would hold his dinner. He imagined he would. 

“Round trip, sir?” 

Dick checked his watch, though he didn’t need to. There was a clock right above the ticket window. He looked at the morning sun streaming in dusty beams through the filmy station windows. 

“Sir?”

“Sorry.” He smiled at her. “No. One way.” He slid his money across the counter.

She tore off a ticket and stamped it aggressively. “Platform six, arrives Union Station Chicago 12:14, have a nice trip sir.” 

Dick took his ticket and walked across the lobby to the concession counter, where he bought himself a Coca-Cola. He went outside, sat down on a bench, and waited for his bus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, if you read that whole thing, THANK YOU. I did not intend for this to be nearly as long as it turned out to be. I also didn't realize Harry was going to show up with his giant unit, but I don't make the rules. 
> 
> The title is from a gorgeous poem by the National Book Award winner, Poet Laureate, and, incidentally, WWII veteran, Stanley Kunitz,["Touch Me".](https://billmoyers.com/story/a-poet-a-day-touch-me-by-stanley-kunitz/)


End file.
